Movie Review: Répertoire des villes disparues

So, I was at home doing some cleaning and organizing recently. Often times, when I do this, it feels better to turn the television on, almost like it offers some company. Every now and again, something good will come on, and capture my attention.  

This is what happened this time around. I was watching one of the French language movie channels (Super Ecran), and found this weird Québécois movie. Through the first few minutes, I could not tell if it was a drama, or a horror movie, or something else. In fact, it seemed at first to be just a series of strange scenes with no obvious relation to one another. A distinctive looking woman (she reminded me a bit of Wendy in The Shining) was talking to a couple, but I was not yet really paying attention.  

Before long, they showed some weird scenes, with people just standing outside in the cold and staring at people. Some guys appeared to be breaking into a home and tearing it apart, but then they were trying to sleep in there. And there was a guy who just parked his car on the side of a field, got out (leaving his car door wide open in the obviously frigid winter weather) and walked into the woods, struggling and then having what seemed like a breakdown.  

This is around the point where I really began to pay attention. And the movie started to get really good, quite intriguing. In truth, it was a combination of things, including the shots, which had a very bleak, colorless feel to them. And the music accompanying the scenes, which were haunting and intense. The build-up was fantastic, and before long, I had pretty much forgotten about the cleaning that I had been doing.  

It is an eerie movie, clearly with a limited budget, that nonetheless thrives on the mood, the feel, the atmosphere, that the movie nonetheless successfully creates. Again, the colorless shots and the dramatic, eerie music really enhanced this. Despite this story clearly taking place in the middle of a brutal Québec winter, it felt quite fitting to be watching it around Halloween time.  

This movie is not your typical horror movie. It does not rely on jump scares or gore. Instead, it relies on the feeling that there is something seriously, terribly wrong, but you cannot quite put your finger on what exactly it is. Some of the scenes of the people simply staring felt reminiscent of Michael Myers in the first Halloween, much like the feeling of something unsettling dominating the mood felt reminiscent of The Shining.  

It comes recommended, because once I began to fully pay attention to the movie, it really captivated me. That, despite having missed the beginning of the movie (a car accident where one of the locals in this small Québéc town gets killed is the trigger event, if you will). I began to regret having missed the earlier part of the movie, but have not found it online yet, although truth me, I will keep trying.  

Nevertheless, I recommend it, but with this warning: it does not follow the normal rules of horror film. You will not get a scantily clad, big breasted woman being chased by some monster or psycho killer. You will not get blood and gore. You will not even get some evil genius delighting in tormenting helpless victims. What you get instead is a statement on the brutality of loneliness and isolation, in a movie that makes you ask questions. There are some real surprises, too, although I did not want to mention it for fear of spoiling it for anyone who may read this review and is interested in seeing the film, but has not done so yet.  

That said, it should also be noted that not all questions are answered. Again, in the interest of not spoiling it, I am not mentioning how it ends, or what questions have not been answered. But if the movie thrives on the mysterious and the unexplained, then suffice to say that much of this remains unexplained even by the time the end credits appear. If there was a criticism of the movie from my end (and I kind of like movies that make you wonder, and do not answer all of your questions), then that would be it.  

Again, this is a relatively low-budget movie, and if you are looking for screams and chases and blood and guts, this movie is not for you. This is not Scream, or Halloween, or Friday the 13th, let alone some of the more recent horror movies. There is only one scene from the parts that I saw where one woman screams and runs away from something, and even this is not done in a typical style for a horror movie.  A solid movie overall, and it should be a statement on how impressed I was with this movie that I will indeed be looking to find it again on the internet if possible, or keeping my eye open for it to be broadcast again. 

A solid movie overall!